Quote:
Originally Posted by beautifuldisaster78
If you have DID, and if you are willing to share, I want to know specifics of how you were diagnosed, how you came to accept the diagnosis (if you denied it or not), and how you first started to realize that there were alters, how you came to name them or know their names. I also, and most importantly I guess, want to know if your diagnosis, and finding the names of the alters and all that process, made things worse for you? What changed before and after the diagnosis?
My therapist and I are exploring something similar though I don't think it's quite DID- I do lose time, but for the most part I think I remain pretty much what I guess you'd call co-conscious. Anyway I'm still in a phase of finding a correct diagnosis and really would like to hear other's experiences. I know with DID that it's not exactly as portrayed in the movies and that people with DID can actually appear to lead normal lives without anyone ever knowing that they switch alters. It seems to me like a scary diagnosis. Don't get me wrong, I believe it's real, it just worries me that a diagnosis would bring more attention to it and make the symptoms worse.
Anyway would love to hear your before/during/after diagnosis stories.
Thanks.
Oh and one more thing... how long were you in mental health treatment before finding the right diagnosis?
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Hmmmm now you have my curiousness up...
let me get this straight you dont have DID and your therapist and you are not treating you for DID but you want us to tell you all our details like.. how we got diagnosed with DID, how we accepted it and what we go through because of having DID?
sounds to me like you are fishing (doing research /using us as your research subjects)
how about you tell us what your problem is and we will tell you if we have the same problems that you have and how we have handled those problems...
because thats what we do here. we are a support group... people helping each other through tough times.
In general the diagnosis process is different for everyone, by that I mean people who have DID have to meet the same diagnostic criteria but how and what tests are done depends upon each persons own location and how those treatment providers test for mental disorders..
your therapist can tell you what tests you need to do for diagnosis of DID / mental disorders..
you say you lose time.. if you are here where I live and work, for that symptom I had to go through extensive brain scans like CAT scan, EEG, EKG, MRI, MRA, blood tests, urine tests, stress tests, drug and alcohol testing, thyroid testing, angiography, psychometric tests, lumbar puncture and many more to rule out any medical and mental health problems that can cause a person to have memory/cognitive problems that can result in loss of time...example anemia, heart disease, brain tumors, cancer, epilepsy and other seizure disorders, (and many others) that share or cause this same symptom.
how long does it take to be diagnosed DID.. again it all depends upon what the diagnostic process is where you are. for me it took being tested for it once over the course of a month or so. for others it can take yrs before receiving the diagnosis.
your therapist can tell you how long it will take you to complete the diagnostic process where you are.
I found out my alters were there when I was diagnosed. i had the symptom of hearing voices all my life.
I did not name my alters some had names some didnt. where I live and work it is considered unethical for therapists to require their clients to name the alters. it is believed doing so would possibly cause the client to make up alters that really are not there. plus when I asked my therapist if I should name the alters she told me my giving them names would probably result in giving them names of which they dont like, dont want or is the wrong name for them. it ws best to wait and see if they had their own names before I forced a name of my own on them.
being diagnosed changed nothing other than putting a name to which has already been there since I was under 5 yrs old.